Louis M. Guenin, Lecturer on Ethics in Science at Harvard University, says it perfectly in an article titled "Why Voters Should Turn From the Pseudoconservative Party of the Great Recession"
This is my suggestion for your Must Read of The Day. Calling what the Republican party has done since Obama's inauguration "economic sabotage" Professor Guenin lays out in perfect detail how the conservative movement is steeped in self serving hypocrisy and two faced malarkey that only benefits the wealthy and corporate power, and why every thinking person should turn their back on the Republican party.
By all means, read the full article over at HuffingtonPost.com, it is well worth your time.
The title says it all, but here are the best parts.
Conservatism, as eloquently introduced by Edmund Burke (1729–1797), advocates esteem for government and established institutions. It holds that within them lies an accumulated wisdom that citizens and their leaders should respect and consult. Revering the established order, its constitution, and its history, conservatism cultivates a cautious disposition. Legislators should proceed by careful deliberation guided by the counsel of prudence. Policy should change incrementally. When government errs, all citizens should, in Burke's words, “approach to the faults of the state as to the wounds of a father, with pious awe and trembling solicitude.”
The Pseudoconservative Radical Attack
Today's Republican Party consists of pseudoconservatives, wearers of the “conservative” mantle who repudiate conservatism. Rather than esteeming government, they disdain it. They seem to delight in ridiculing government's failings. To their candidates, one might put the question, if you despise government, why do you want government jobs? But let us leave aside their personal ambitions, and consider their views and methods.
Since the Reagan administration, Republicans have vented their dislike for government by, in their words, “starving the beast.” In this explicitly avowed scheme, they contrive first to reduce taxes (mostly for corporations and the rich) so as to deprive the federal government of revenue, then invoke the diminished revenue as the pretense for insisting that expenditures must be slashed (especially for social programs) on pain of increasing the deficit. They insist on the expenditure reductions regardless of the contractionary effect on national income, the direct increase in unemployment (as if millions of government employees weren't employees) and the indirect increase in the private sector, and regardless of the hardships for program beneficiaries.
HuffingtonPost.com
I have said this many times before, and I am thrilled to see it put so eloquently, but the short version is this: Republicans use tax cuts to create deficits on purpose so they can use those deficits to destroy the programs they don't like. The goal isn't to limit government, it is to abolish it. The goal is to limit democracy and let corporations and the power of a wealthy few plunder the national treasury as they please and dictate foreign and domestic policy.
But it is when you get into the guts of what Psuedo-Conservativism where you see it is a "Platform on Stilts" as Professor Guenin terms it. A platform on Stilts on Bullshit Mountain.
The pseudoconservative platform, by dint of self-contradiction, collapses for lack of a foundation. We see this by first scanning some of the contradictions.
Government is an ill (Health and Human Services, Education, Housing and Urban Development, EPA, SEC, et al.); government is not an ill (Defense, CIA, Homeland Security, FBI, Commerce, et al.). Government should not enlarge (the safety net for the poor); government should enlarge (a near doubling of defense expenditures). Government should not intrude (financial industry, gun ownership, oil exploration, corporate spending on elections, regulation in general); government should intrude (abortion, collective bargaining by public employees, same-sex marriage, surveillance and wiretapping of citizens without warrants). Government does not create jobs; there are too many government employees. Sacrificing human life is impermissible (abortion, embryonic stem cell research); sacrificing human life is permissible (capital punishment). Government should not subsidize persons who can fend for themselves (the poor); government should subsidize persons who can fend for themselves (oil companies). The federal government should not determine a matter traditionally left to the states (in general); the federal government should determine a matter traditionally left to the states (prohibition of abortion, definition of marriage). Government should not use tax incentives to induce behavior (purchase of medical insurance); government should use tax incentives to induce behavior (oil depletion allowance).
HuffingtonPost.com
Dear "Conservatives". Read it and weep. The time for honoring yourself will soon be at an end.
Slightly more below the fold
There is a reason why this years GOP Presidential nomination runner up Rick Santorum told people recently that the GOP will never have the "elite, smart people" on their side. It is because anyone who can see through psuedo-conservative bullshit will never vote for these phony, two faced, authoritarian, religiously extremist, plutocracy enabling, contradictory and out of touch Republicans. The only people who live on bullshit mountain anymore are the ones who no longer notice the stench. If you are for forcing vaginal probes into women's vaginas against their will then you are for the biggest kind of Government ever. If you are against government spending on principle how can you be for more government military spending? If you are against the government interfering in the market place how can you possibly vote for more subsidies to immensely profitable oil companies? You can't. Not unless you are just bullshitting.
And that brings us to Mitt Romney. What better candidate to embody the two faced used car salesman bullshit of today's fake conservative movement. A guy who can switch positions with the ease of a yoga instructor. Conservatives told us the problem with Bush Jr was that he wasn't conservative enough and then they nominated this guy!?! A guy that essentially bought the GOP nomination along with the help of his ultra-wealthy backers and is trying to convince America that banks should not be regulated at all but a woman's womb should be heavily regulated by the Government. A guy who won't show you his tax returns, won't show you which tax deductions he would cut, won't show you how he pays for his budget plan because he KNOWS that if you saw what Romney has in mind you would never vote for him in a million years unless you already are a millionaire.
Please read the entire article quoted above. I hope I have not posted too much of it, hopefully that will be offset by whatever increased web traffic the original article gets. Kudos to Professor Guenin for what is one of the most artful ways I have ever seen someone describe modern fake conservativism for the upside down bullshit that it really is. For all of the lies, doubling down on clearly failed policies that benefit the wealthy at the expense of everyone else, for their sabotage of the American recovery during the Obama Presidency and for the ugly vestiges of bigotry and discrimination that they cling to relentlessly, voters should turn away from the Republican party. And they should vote Democratic.
The floor is now yours
Peace and love to all